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I use the bpm counters to aid my mixes

First I mix by ear, then when its matched I look at the counter to make sure it's correct and my mix is perfect? Anything wrong that? I can beat match by ear but not very well, the bpm counters make my life easier. Cannot believe some have and issue with one looking at the bpm counters, times have changed, fair play to any vinyl dj, trust me I used vinyl years, sometimes good, sometimes bad. I do not use sync though, some will say looking at the bpm counters is the same, but I match by ear first before matching the counters to keep it locked in.

Being able to beatmatch by ear is handy because it can help you with imperfect beatgrids, and songs with variable tempos. Other than that, if you put some work into your beatgrids, you can sync it up and never have to think about beatmatching!

If you don't know how to beatmatch without looking at the bpm, that's fine. There is way more to mixing than just beatmatching. I think beatmatching is a little like Latin - great if you know it, but is a dead language. You really don't need to do it all by ear now. And passing up technology for some idealistic notion about a skill that is no longer necessary I think is a misjudgment.

I started with 2 turntables and a mixer. And while I do think that it was harder back then to HAVE to beatmatch in order to mix, I do remember the CD controversy and how i raged against them. I am older and hopefully wiser and believe in using technology. Always using sync is a cop out - I admit.

There is so much more to making a sweet transition than BPM. EQs, phrase matching, gain, etc. The ones who decide to actually learn the craft - being the way it is now - will still be better than someone who fails to take the time to learn these things.

I used Mixed in Key - should I feel bad that I cannot hear what key my tracks are?

I used Mixed in Key - should I feel bad that I cannot hear what key my tracks are?

Yes you should man.. not that you can't name it "this track's in E major" just by listening to it.. or whatever. Naming the key doesn't matter. But if you can't listen to two tracks and know if their keys work together, just by hearing.. or if they don't work together.. then yea, you don't know how to do something that's even more basic than beatmatching.

And.. no, you don't have to beatmatch by ear.. the computer can do it just as well what with gridding and stuff.
But I have to call bullshit on the people who say "If I don't learn to beatmatch it frees my time to be more creative"... etc etc....

SUUUUURRREE IT DOES.

Once in a rare while someone comes along and never learns to DJ the traditional way but instead goes all out learning to use the new stuff.. and really uses those digital capabilities to do something awesome that nobody else is doing, that's really great.

The other 95% of the time, you have people who did not work hard to learn anything, they don't have flow because they never learned that, they play a mishmash of loops and samples and tracks and whatever and it all sounds like they know what they are doing because the computer keeps it all beatmatched and phrasematched for them, yet behind the decks is a person who never learned to LISTEN to tracks or to develop a style or understand how to put tracks together to set a mood. They don't know how to DJ.

So hey, I'm not going to give anyone shit for using digital features if you have them, but just understand that all those hours the old school guys spent learning to mix by ear, that was the hours they also spent really learning how tracks go together and why they go together, learning to really HEAR what is going on with the tracks. Whereas you got to skip all those hours because you could beatmatch right away, so now it's up to you as to whether you are going to spend the time to learn those things.. or whether you are going to join the thousands of DJs who don't really know how to DJ but just how to beatmatch (because the computer does that).

Yes you should man.. not that you can't name it "this track's in E major" just by listening to it.. or whatever. Naming the key doesn't matter. But if you can't listen to two tracks and know if their keys work together, just by hearing.. or if they don't work together.. then yea, you don't know how to do something that's even more basic than beatmatching.

I meant knowing the exact key name.

I can tell if something is off.

I listen to mixes when I first started some times to give myself an idea about how I have grown as a DJ. I hear some transitions are just cringe because the key is off.

And.. no, you don't have to beatmatch by ear.. the computer can do it just as well what with gridding and stuff.
But I have to call bullshit on the people who say "If I don't learn to beatmatch it frees my time to be more creative"... etc etc....

SUUUUURRREE IT DOES.

Once in a rare while someone comes along and never learns to DJ the traditional way but instead goes all out learning to use the new stuff.. and really uses those digital capabilities to do something awesome that nobody else is doing, that's really great.

The other 95% of the time, you have people who did not work hard to learn anything, they don't have flow because they never learned that, they play a mishmash of loops and samples and tracks and whatever and it all sounds like they know what they are doing because the computer keeps it all beatmatched and phrasematched for them, yet behind the decks is a person who never learned to LISTEN to tracks or to develop a style or understand how to put tracks together to set a mood. They don't know how to DJ.

So hey, I'm not going to give anyone shit for using digital features if you have them, but just understand that all those hours the old school guys spent learning to mix by ear, that was the hours they also spent really learning how tracks go together and why they go together, learning to really HEAR what is going on with the tracks. Whereas you got to skip all those hours because you could beatmatch right away, so now it's up to you as to whether you are going to spend the time to learn those things.. or whether you are going to join the thousands of DJs who don't really know how to DJ but just how to beatmatch (because the computer does that).

You are absolutely correct of course. If you want to be a good DJ not just a sh"" DJ. Perhaps my definition of a DJ is off. A bit too inclusive. I am not in my scene here, but I guarantee that there are DJs playing out around here that do not have the skills to DJing well.

I do believe that in order to be a GOOD DJ, you need to know beatmatching, your tracks well, the structure of tracks, ear for things off key, etc.

Maybe it has just become so automatic for me to go from absolute beatmatching to being able to see the bpm. I still beatmatch, I just get a little helper. I have not forgotten the months and years it took to become a good DJ on just decks and a mixer. It was a much higher point of entry into being a DJ back then - time and money.

I guess it was my hate of CDs and then my acceptance of it has me a bit more opened minded about how DJing and technology are progressing together.

Yea def well I learned on vinyl when I was a kid but not beatmatching.. I wanted to be a radio DJ. But then I dropped DJing for around 12 years and when I came back, it was because I had gotten into psytrance.. this was around 2001 when I decided to DJ again and the argument between vinyl and CD was raging, but psytrance being a traveler culture was ahead of the game and was already going to CD full speed and it obvious that I should get CD decks this time around.

But funny thing is u know, it used to be that the CDJ DJ's were all beatmatching but the controller people were mostly not. But now with the newer CDJ's and XDJ's it's all the same thing, there's even a sync button. I've had CDJ-900's for a few years and XDJ-1000's for a year or so but I didn't really use Rekordbox until the last few months, I always just put my tracks on flash drives and play like I'm playing off CD. But I finally put everything into RB and now I'm like wow, now I know how those guys can mix without headphones.. cause I can do that.... I watch these techno guys mixing 3 and even four decks really quickly and it doesn't look like they're trying that hard and yea def they are using quantizatation. So that's just how it is now.